BJP’s India Shining campaign was anti-poor: Rahul Gandhi

Bhilwara (Rajasthan), May 4 (IANS) Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Monday ridiculed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ‘India Shinning’ campaign during the 2004 elections saying the party coined the slogan in English “as it was not meant for the poor and the backward classes”. Addressing an election rally here, Gandhi said: “Their India Shining campaign is an example of their anti-poor, anti-farmer ideology. The houses of the poor and Dalits were not shining. India was shinning for a few people.”

A press release from the Congress party also quoted him as saying that 60 years ago there were not many rich people in the country and added that “it was the poor people of India who fought for independence”.

“But now our opposition tries to keep them (the poor) out of the development process,” Gandhi said. The Congress leader was referring to BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) election slogan during the 2004 elections, which sought to claim that India was shining because of the efforts of the party’s rule.

He also claimed that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) worked for the uplift of the poor and always heard the “voice of the aam aadmi (common man)”. “In our view if India has to move forward, every section has to move forward,” he said and elaborated on the various programmes launched by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, like the flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the loan waiver for farmers.